Are You Up For the Weekend Vegan Challenge?

My friend Liz recently decided to do a personal challenge: eat vegan food for a whole weekend. For long-time vegans, two days of eating vegan might not seem like much, but I’m a big believer in little changes. If you’re not ready to take the plunge, why not just dip a toe?

I’m actually not totally sure that a weekend is long enough to find out if a vegan diet is a fit for you, but I’m a fan of anything that encourages folks to give vegan food a go! When I went vegan back in 2006, it took me a few weeks to get the swing of planning meals and cooking dishes without animal-based crutches like eggs and milk products. If you’re going to try going vegan for just a weekend, I’d highly recommend using vegan recipes from good sources instead of trying to modify what you’d normally cook. That kind of thing is better suited for a more long-term situation, in my opinion.

What I do like about The Weekend Vegan Challenge is that it’s something anyone can take on, and it’s a great chance to try out some delicious vegan recipes! You probably won’t notice any big changes in how you look or feel, but you do get to flex your cooking muscles in a new way and see that a vegan diet can be just as satisfying as one made with animal products.

Ready to give the challenge a go? On the next page, I’ve compiled a weekend meal plan, in case you guys want to take the challenge but need some food inspiration!

Weekend Vegan Meal Plan

Here’s a delicious vegan meal plan for your Weekend Vegan Challenge! One caveat here: since we’re talking weekend cooking, I didn’t worry about finding quick or super easy recipes. There are much quicker vegan breakfasts that you can make, for example, but on a lazy weekend, why not go all out?

Saturday

Breakfast: Kick off your morning with a tasty tofu scramble! This recipe from The Post Punk Kitchen is one of my favorites. My husband and I love a tofu scramble with a side of toast. You can dip the toast in the scramble, spread it with some jam, or use a non-hydrogenated vegan margarine like Earth Balance.

Breakfast: Pancakes! We used to do Pancake Sunday almost weekly around my house. Which reminds me, we are long overdue for a Sunday pancake breakfast!

Lunch: Soup and salad, anyone? While this lentil and chard soup cooks up on the stove, toss together a simple green salad! I’d recommend spring mix tossed with some chopped green onion, sliced avocado, tomato, carrots, and roasted, unsalted cashews. Top it off with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil.

Snack: I know this is total kid food, but a banana and peanut butter is one of my favorite snacks lately. Just put a tablespoon or two of PB (or cashew or almond butter) on a plate with a peeled, sliced banana. Dip your fork in the peanut butter, stab a piece of banana, and enjoy!

Dinner: Pasta is such a crowd-pleaser, and this tempeh bolognese pasta is a perfect Sunday evening dish! You can serve this on its own or with some steamed veggies on the side.

Gave up Soy Milk so . . . I've tried Almond, Hemp and Coconut milks. Don't care for Almond especially on Cheerios, Hemp was ok, but Coconut Milk, yuuuuuuuum! Excellent on cereal. Nice and creamy. Coconut oil is excellent for popping corn. ;-) Will get more coconut and may try Rice Milk.

I will send this meal plan to a friend who is intrigued by my veganism and wants to try a plant-based diet. The recipes look great! For the Tempeh Bolognese, I recommend pre-cooking the block of tempeh for 20 minutes in gently simmering water. Pre-cooking removes some of the tempeh's bitter flavor, and makes it softer and moister, therefore easier to crumble or slice. Pre-cooked tempeh also accepts marinades better. For many years I shunned tempeh because I thought it tasted weird, and I didn't know how to cook it properly. A friend showed me how, and now tempeh is a regular part of my diet.

What a great idea. I've been practicing the vegan lifestyle and really like it, but occasionally I slip up. I had ice cream at lunch today and have been feeling guilty the rest of the day thinking I just contributed to animal abuse.

I have been a vegetarian for 36 years and vegan for 2 when I found out about the calf situation. A calf is taken from it's mother as soon as born so they can have the milk for human consumption, the calf is killed if male and cow is made pregnant again and again as there are not many cows to feed a human and when cow cannot produce any more milk it is slaughtered. A vegan is someone who does not wear leather, eat honey, or any animal, including molluscs. There is no cruelty act for lobsters, crabs etc and lobsters do feel pain.

Great idea. I eat a lot of vegan food, so doing a whole weekend is no problem.

There are, however, lots of simple everyday foods which are vegan and which do not involve experimenting with new ingredients and recipes.

Try bread with nut butter and jam for breakfast; pasta with a vegetable sauce (skip the cheese) for lunch; nuts and fruit as snacks; and a vegetable stir fry with nuts added for dinner or a meat free chile (keep the kidney beans in) or something similar.

If you are just going for a day or two then optimal amounts of protein can be waived rather than committing to things you have never tried before and might not like.